Enemy Aliens

Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism

A revised edition of the award-winning civil liberties scholar’s condemnation of the USA Patriot Act

“Excoriates the USA PATRIOT Act and the rest of the Bush administration’s post–9/11 anti-terrorism crusade as an unconstitutional attack on out cherished civil liberties.” —The Washington Post

When David Cole was first writing Enemy Aliens, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the anti-immigrant brand of American patriotism was at a fever pitch. Now, as the pendulum swings back, and court after court finds the Bush administration’s tactics of secrecy and assumption of guilt unconstitutional, Cole’s book stands as a prescient and critical indictment of the double standards we have applied in the war on terror.

Called “brilliantly argued” by Edward Said and “the essential book in the field” by former CIA director James Woolsey, Enemy Aliens shows why it is a moral, constitutional, and practical imperative to afford every person in the United States the protections from government excesses that we expect for ourselves.

Praise

“David Cole is one of the country’s greatest voices for civil liberties today.”
—Anthony Lewis
“Remarkable and fascinating.”
The New York Review of Books
“If there is a flaw in Cole’s logic, it escapes me.”
—John W. Dean, Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A forceful antidote to the current round of xenophobic zeal. . . . Lucid and reasoned.”
The Village Voice

News and Reviews

Special Post-Election Catalog: Fearless Books for Perilous Times

Never before in The New Press's twenty-five-year history have we issued a

Books by David Cole

Terrorism and the Constitution
Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security

David Cole, James X. Dempsey

Less Safe, Less Free
Why America Is Losing the War on Terror

David Cole, Jules Lobel

Rules for Resistance
Advice from Around the Globe for the Age of Trump

David Cole, Melanie Wachtell Stinnett

The Torture Memos
Rationalizing the Unthinkable

David Cole

Goodreads Reviews